His Eyes Still Haunt My Dreams
by Florence of Arabia
Summary: The romance arc of Lawrence of Arabia (and if you don't think there is a romance arc, just read some of David Lean's thoughts on the subject) told from Ali's perspective. Pairing Lawrence/Ali, rather angsty very slashy but not explicit. Hope you enjoy!


His Eyes Still Haunt My Dreams

When he comes to the well he means to shoot the pale stranger, but something stays his hand. He supposed it to be idle curiosity but looking back he can see what force caused him to hesitate. He has seen Englishmen before but this one is different. Maybe it is the way he seems to have no fear or maybe it is the way his eyes flash and shine with anger. They are endless those eyes, like the sky and just as blue and when Ali leaves he finds that the man's eyes still stare through him. At night they haunt his dreams. The man's words too, his arrogance and ignorance. How dare someone just come from that cold, backward, little island presume to know the people of the desert and to tell them how to live? But he brushes this off, goes on with his life and assumes that the man will leave his nightly thoughts soon they same way he gradually leaves his waking ones.

So when he walks into Faisal's tent he is surprised to see the Englishman's eyes rove all over him. They come to rest at his groin but Ali is sure that this is because of where he is sitting on the floor. They talk and it is Ali's turn to stare at the shining gold hair, the high cheekbones and expressive, perfect, wide slash of a mouth. When he tears his eyes from the man he sees Faisal looking at him with a knowing smile. He wonders if Faisal just arranges his face like this to put people off, but he doubts it. There is little this man does not see. But he must notice too. How could he not? You'd have to be dead and buried not to. Not to see how from one angle he has fine chiseled handsome features and from another he looks like the most beautiful woman in the world. But maybe he fears, this is just something I see and Faisal is laughing to himself at the young man who can't hide that he is smitten by this infuriating man.

He follows the Englishman into the desert on his crazy whim. But maybe he isn't crazy, perhaps he isn't there to get them all killed. It could be that he is a genius or that some divine force that he cannot understand works through this man. But when he goes back after a fool who let his camel wander away he knows he must be mad. Ali yells after him with a ferocity that surprises him. What should he care if the Englishman dies? Wouldn't it be better to be rid of him, forget him, to be free of his ideas and from what the thought of that slim angular body does to him. But he finds his absence even harder to bear than his presence and is reduced to hitting the ground in frustration until finally his torment is ended. When English returns Ali feels the relief sweep through him. He doesn't take the first drink offered him. He stares straight ahead as if he sees no one, no one but Ali who comes to him through the others and gives him what he needs. Even then he waits so gasp out the words "Nothing is written" before taking a drink. All the while he stares at Ali letting the water run down his face. When he is done Ali shows him his bedroll and lets him collapse.

Ali watches him sleep and knows that he is changed. Not only does he realize this man is not mad but that he has been meant for him. He could have died in that perilous stretch of the Nefud, but he was spared. He was sent back to us, sent back to me. When he wakes they talk, about fate, among other things and Ali decides he must un-basterdize him. He can't be Lawrence, the illegitimate son of some minor aristocrat. He is El Aurens now, born in the fire of the desert. The man he was died during the crossing. He takes this further and burns his clothes. The next morning when Aurens wakes and wonders why he has nothing to wear he is amused. Ali gives him a robe that was sent to him to wear to his wedding and Aurens is even more amused.

"What are you going to tell your aunt Ali? That you're afraid you had to give them these beautiful robes to an infidel because you burned his clothes" He puts special emphasis on the fact that Ali burned his clothes but of course he doesn't seem to mind any of it.

But he doesn't laugh, he will have to tell her this if she asks for how could he tell the truth? How could he say; I will not be wed to a woman in these, I gave them instead to him that I love. I dressed him as my virginal bride, there in the desert, and let the men all admire him as one of us and in the desert I will have him. Aurens puts on the headdress, his wedding veil, and Ali motions for him to twirl around which he does before going off on his own.

When he comes back he brings Auda Abu Tayi with him and that night Ali has to endure his flirting. It's the way he says "pleasure" in particular that makes Ali grab Aurens afterward when they are alone.

"What was that?"

"What was what?" says Aurens eyes wide and rimmed with dark kohl

"'You trouble me like women', you know what he meant" Ali spits

"Ali, I'm a man. He's a man. I wouldn't know how to do…whatever it is your accusing me of if I tried. Back in Cairo I couldn't even get anyone to like me. Let alone…" he trails off and Ali puts a hand behind his head, pulling his face roughly to his and kisses him for the first time. He pulls away and Aurens looks so scared and shy. But he's hungry too and so Ali kisses him again and he responds with a ferocious intensity.

"You are so pure" he says and Aurens' eyes flick down. How is it that he turns however you look at him? Fearless warrior, cold scholar, sensitive poet, tart, manipulator, friendless and lonely, and lastly as he is now; every bit the blushing bride.

"No, I'm not pure. Sometimes my thoughts…the desert is pure and, like it, you are pure. But I'm not"

"People like you here Aurens" and Ali traces his hand along the lines of his jaw "Forgive me for doubting you. Just the notion of anyone else even thinking of you in that way is agony to me" at this Aurens closes his eyes and moans a little with pleasure. He never thought anyone would say that to him.

"Ali don't…you can't pin any kind of hopes on me. Not in that way…I can't give you what you want" Ali takes his wrist and leads him to their tent. He wonders what makes the man so shy, if he can ignore custom for love why can't this man who delights in ignoring not only what everyone thinks but what is physically possible. After Aqaba Ali will find a place to be alone with him and he will tease out his reticence.

After Aqaba they do get a moment to themselves. On the beach he finds Aurens alone and tosses the flowers he brought into the waves. He knows he should just hand them to the man, that it would be kinder and more honest. But he likes to see what he will do. And Aurens does not disappoint. He jumps off of his camel and wades around in the water desperately trying to catch the garland. Ali laughs, not at him but because the gesture is so very needy that he is touched. When Aurens said he didn't know who he was maybe he should have listened, he wishes that he could go back to put his younger self right on a few points. But he couldn't see, not then triumphant and in love and with what he imagined was his future so clear in front of him.

When Aurens says he will leave him to go back to his own people Ali feels as though a part of his body, though he can't tell what part exactly, is being ripped away from him. Aurens isn't English, they don't understand him, they don't love him. So why should he go back to them? So he snaps and in return he is called an ignorant man and left standing with Auda who just says he is not perfect. Of course he is not perfect how could he be he is only a man.

But he comes back of course. Though things have changed, but not beyond repair. No, they are not beyond repair until Allenby does whatever he does. After Dera'a they are not beyond repair. After Dera'a when Aurens flickers between pushing him away and letting him get closer than he ever has. Ali cleans his wounds and when he weeps during the night he holds him. He whispers to him that he is safe and his suffering is over. He kisses his jaw, the line of his hair, his cheek, and the place where the long tight neck muscles meet his collarbone. He tells him that no man who has been to war does not cry, even though in the daylight he might brag of his triumphs but at night he is dragged back to his worse times against his will. Aurens tries to shake his head but Ali just pulls him closer and they sleep pressed against each other. He tries to make him eat, wraps him up and holds him close, using his body to guard against the cold, and anything else that might come after the man he loves. If the others talk, Ali just gives them a look that makes even the most foolhardy hold his tongue. But then Aurens leaves again. He says to Ali

"A man can't want what he wants" and Ali thinks he's talking about skin color, about culture, about nationality. He thinks he's talking about West and East, England and Arabia. Maybe he is but Ali can't hear what else he is trying to say.

When he comes back again he is a different man. When he comes back he offers Ali money and Ali feels like whatever has been holding him together has failed and he is pulled apart. He yells at Aurens

"You offer me money? Me! Who are you? I no longer know you! I will tell you who you are. You are some dirty English bastard! Do you think I am your whore? You want to pay me as if I were your pleasure boy? Take your filthy money. I do not want it!"

Aurens looks at him with a face that could be set in stone, he looks like a statue; there is nothing behind his eyes.

"So I take it you're not coming"

"Of course I am coming! This is about more than us, I know you cannot imagine that something other than you would compel people to action" Aurens is still blank but when he speaks Ali can sense the part of him that still feels human.

"I didn't want to assume…" He trails off then laughs. It is harsh like the crack of a whip "I said the best of them wouldn't come for money, they'd come for me"

"I'm…I'm sorry I called you a bastard…" Says Ali hoping to move back to someplace they might know.

He laughs again and Ali wishes to God he wouldn't, as he can't think of a nastier sound

"It's the truth"

"Aurens, look at me. What did they do to you, what did they say?" Ali hates that he is begging and Aurens just looks desperately sad. He takes Ali's head in both his hands and kisses his brow. It burns Ali's flesh because it is so passionless, as if his lover is proving to him that now he can kiss him without being moved. But why do it in the first place?

They see the remains of an Arab village and a Turkish column moving off as though this were nothing. There is a part of Ali, a part that feels very old, like a leftover from another life, wants to go after the devils. But his newfound misfortunes have robbed him of his certainties and he almost pities the Turks, and the Arabs and the English, and the donkeys and camels, and every other thing that makes its sorry way in this sorry world. Most of him is sick and tired of this bloody business. But Aurens isn't. No, Aurens is suddenly more alive then he has been in days. Ali tries to talk him out of this madness he knows they are damned.

"NO PRISONERS! NO PRISONERS!"

Aurens screams and Ali follows him, Ali follows him into hell. He loves this man and he is bound by his love so if Aurens wants to damn himself he damns Ali too.

After it is over Ali finds Aurens staring at his reflection in a blood soaked dagger. He wants to reach out and touch him, to overcome the horror and disgust and reach out to him, maybe now Aurens will need him. But he can't not now that he knows. Aurens didn't withhold himself from Ali because he is scared, though it might be some of that, or because he doesn't feel. No, Aurens doesn't want to lay with him because he'd get no pleasure from it, because he is aroused by one thing and that is pain, his pain and the pain of others. Though he may hate himself now as he follows Ali away from the carnage he created, he has had his release. His shudders and gasps were not those of a man eager for vengeance but of one who is working up to a terrifying climax. As they walk away Ali says over his shoulder;

"May god help you, for no man can."

In spite of all this he doesn't leave him. He knows that this must be something he cannot control, something he didn't ask for, something for which he is deeply ashamed. But he cannot help his fear and fear might, if not kill love, make him see its impossibility.

Why does god do this to him? Am I not devout? Why do you give me this passion if it is to end like this? Do you dislike me? To make me love a man like this, a man so beautiful, so impossible to fathom and in his beauty so terrible and so destructive. He loves the desert because he is like the desert. Maybe Aurens is not a man but some kind of spirit, a human embodiment of the land they inhabit, a way of testing Ali a way of tormenting him.

But Aurens is a human as he sees clearly in the sad shell of a man who sits in front of him in the council chamber of Damascus. Ali says he will learn politics and Aurens spits back that it's a low occupation. He'd never thought about it before he met this man. There were so many things he'd never thought about before Aurens came into his life. He was content then, now he feels that he had a chance to be great and lost it somehow, this is what really kills him. The loss of things he didn't know he ever wanted. And it is a loss. It is over. He couldn't admit that before but now he knows that whatever they might have been to each other was a dream.

He leaves Aurens for the last time. They will never meet again in this lifetime. Aurens, or what is left of him will go back to England a broken, miserable, failure. Thinking about this Ali is hit with not only his own pain but the other man's as well. He thought that the pain of saying goodbye would break his heart but it is what he feels for Aurens that goes beyond anything he has the ability to bare. As he walks away Auda emerges from the shadows and grabs him

"He is your friend?" Auda's voice is accusing

"Take your hand away" He wrests his arm from Auda's grip. He will suffer no man to touch him now. It simply hurts too much.

"You love him" The Howeitat makes the statement with his customary tact and finesse

"No, I fear him." This isn't completely true but who is Auda to demand his feelings, what would Auda know of being kissed by someone who then didn't want to touch you? Someone who clings to you at night but in the harsh light of day acts like you don't exist? Someone who you felt might just be your whole world who tells you he's come to the end of himself and is going back to his country that he doesn't even like, where he isn't even wanted. Ali knows this isn't necessarily fair but if a man can't want what he wants another man can feel what he feels.

"Then why do you weep?"

"If I fear him who love him, how must he fear himself who hates himself?" Auda nods because he finally understands. He wouldn't have that man's thoughts and that man's conscious, not for all the gold in Arabia. Who in their right minds would want to spend a minute inside that man's head?

One day, he tells himself, he will take a wife and be content with long hair and soft curves and he won't long for narrow hips and a strong hard jaw. She will be dark like him and he won't think of lily-white delicate skin and bright blonde hair. But even as he thinks these things he knows they will never truly come to pass, no matter how many years and how many changes lay ahead those blue eyes will always haunt his dreams.


End file.
